In September 2024, we launched the Alberta Ecotrust Retrofit Accelerator program, bringing together more than 35 partners and supporters to kick-start our shared effort to transform the retrofit landscape in Alberta. Over one year later, the program has built momentum, building owner participation and industry engagement.

The program was created to reduce emissions from buildings across the province. Commercial and residential buildings are major contributors to Canada’s carbon footprint, accounting for approximately 40 percent of emissions in Edmonton and 60 percent in Calgary. The program provides free coaching to help building owners and managers undertake deep retrofits that go beyond standard upgrades and take a whole-building approach to reducing emissions, energy use and long-term operating costs. The program is funded by Natural Resources Canada under the Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative (DRAI) and the RBC Foundation’s Tech for Nature program.

This blog reflects on what the program has achieved and what we’ve learned in its first year (September 24, 2024 – September 30, 2025), and shares how we are adapting our efforts and sharpening our focus in year two.

“The program has been instrumental in advancing our energy efficiency initiatives and climate action goals by providing funding for technical studies, offering free expert coaching, and, perhaps most importantly, by being a strategically aligned, like-minded partner. Their team is responsive, supportive, and deeply committed to working in true community with us, which has amplified the impact of our efforts.” - City of Beaumont

The program’s first year at a glance

Gained program participation

Since its launch, the program has attracted strong participation from commercial, institutional, public and multi-unit residential building owners. This strong participation demonstrates the need for retrofit coaching in Alberta. Program coaches supported participants from their expression of interest, through to benchmarking, desktop assessments and the development of deep retrofit plans that align their building upgrades with long-term capital and asset renewal strategies. 

In the first year:

• 143 applications were received.

• 136 building owners were onboarded to the program, representing 1,767 buildings across Alberta.

• 37 of the onboarded building owners (813 buildings) went through the process of desktop assessments, financing guidance and creation of deep retrofit plans.

• Three deep retrofit plans were completed, with 16 in progress.

"Our experience with the program has been excellent. The program itself, along with the insights gained throughout the process, have been very valuable and resulted in the reimagining of our energy auditing process. We would confidently recommend the program to other organizations.” - Avenue Living

To build awareness of deep retrofits and our program’s services, we implemented an integrated marketing, communications and outreach strategy. This included attending and speaking at 23 events, such as the Alberta Seniors and Community Housing Association (ASCHA) Convention and Tradeshow, Alberta Condo Expo and several BOMA events, reaching approximately 1,500 people. In addition, we contributed content to industry publications such as BILD Edmonton and NAIOP’s newsletters, and BOMA Edmonton’s newly launched Square Footage magazine. In the first year, 94,000 visitors explored our program webpage to learn more about deep retrofits and the program.

Built capacity for deep retrofits in Alberta

In addition to offering direct coaching support to building owners and managers, our program has worked to reduce building emissions on a broader scale by making deep retrofits more accessible to Albertans, now and in the future, and by fostering an environment in which they become a routine part of building maintenance and renewal. To do this, we worked collaboratively with industry leaders to support the development of Alberta’s sustainable retrofit industry through capacity-building, peer-to-peer learning and research. 

"Working with Alberta Ecotrust has been so valuable. Our coach has provided us with support and advice with our energy data management, consultant procurement, stakeholder meetings and workshops. Having a person available to provide advice, be it a big or small question, is fantastic. The program has also supported us with financial assistance for our GHG reduction pathway study, which meant we were able to redirect funds to some early retrofit work!" - Parkland County

The following projects were launched in collaboration with Alberta Ecotrust and advanced in the first year of the program:

Network for retrofit vendors

The Retrofit Vendor Network for Large Buildings was launched by Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance (AEEA) as a digital directory to help building owners find experienced Alberta-based contractors, consultants and suppliers specializing in energy-efficient and deep retrofits. In the program's first year, 82 qualified members were added to the directory.

Info sessions and tours to highlight successful deep retrofits

In the first year, we hosted four Deep Retrofit Discovery Sessions in partnership with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT)’s Green Building Technology Access Centre. These sessions highlighted successful deep retrofit projects across various industries and covered topics such as financing, project delivery and various technologies. These sessions were recorded and added to the Emissions-Neutral Buildings Information Exchange (ENBIX) resource library. They can be found here.

Deep retrofit research and reports

The Pembina Institute led research to understand what is required to grow Alberta’s retrofit market at scale. In the first year, they worked with us to develop three reports based on their findings, in addition to two before our program’s launch. Through this research, they continue to uncover the non-energy benefits of retrofitting, such as improving affordability, improving tenants' health and enhancing resilience against severe weather, laying the groundwork for a scalable retrofit market in Alberta. The reports can be found here.

Desktop retrofit plans

Our program provides access to free AI-generated desktop retrofit plans that take a high-level look at your building and provide estimated costs, savings and emissions reductions. In the first year of the program, we worked with Audette to create high-level plans for nearly 8,000 buildings across Alberta (primarily in Edmonton and Calgary) and compiled them into an interactive map to help market the program. These results are intended to generate questions and direct building owners to our program to learn more.

Retrofit resources

Our team of coaches developed and worked with partners on 25 resources to support building owners through the retrofit process, and many of them are publicly available in the ENBIX resource library. Topics include benchmarking, affordable home energy, demystifying financing and working collaboratively with industry leaders to make retrofits more attainable in Alberta. The resources include recorded tours and events, webinars, guides, blogs and reports. The resource library can be found here.

Barriers & learnings

Over the first year, our team of coaches worked directly with building owners to help them identify and navigate opportunities and barriers in their deep retrofit process. The following are some of the barriers that have repeatedly surfaced for building owners and operators exploring or pursuing deep retrofits, along with key learnings.

Barriers to deep retrofits

Data access challenges:

• Building owners with leased spaces, where tenants pay utilities directly, often face difficulties accessing whole-building or suite-level energy data due to administrative processes. Because this data is required to conduct deep retrofit studies, these administrative steps delay the timely completion of the studies for these owners.
  

Social housing constraints:

• Social housing providers often lack the resources and capacity to organize building documentation, including utility data, which is essential for deep retrofit planning.
  

Institutional building limitations:

• School boards and universities are required to complete studies and design work to demonstrate the business case for deep retrofits before securing capital funding. These owners often lack the resources to fund such studies, which limits their ability to move forward with work that is not just “business as usual.” 

• Municipalities have limited ability to take on debt, limiting their options for financing retrofits.
  

Financing options:

• Reviewing the full range of available financing mechanisms often requires multiple and extended discussions. The time commitment required to understand these tools can be significant, and building owners are not always able to dedicate the time needed to engage thoroughly. This presents a barrier to fully assessing and selecting appropriate financing options.

• Building owners are interested in non-conventional financing tools such as Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs), but they want to see successful case studies before adoption, specifically ones similar to their building type.

• EPC projects often stall in the exploratory phase because owners’ finance teams are reluctant to engage in long-term commitments without proven results.
  

Implementation barriers:

• Many retrofit studies stall after audit reports are delivered, despite identified opportunities, due to a lack of capital funding and implementation incentives.

• Additional feasibility study costs, such as solar feasibility studies, structural assessments, and electrical capacity assessments, can often pose barriers to advancing projects. 

• Expensive electricity and cheap natural gas mean that switching to heat pumps, also known as “fuel switching,” is often uneconomical unless paired with solar.

Learnings and overcoming barriers

Value of coaching

• For smaller organizations without a dedicated energy management team, engaging a coach to support project management of deep retrofit studies can help reduce timelines and improve project delivery. 

• For larger organizations, coaching provides additional capacity and support to existing energy management teams, enhancing project efficiency and outcomes.

• The program’s rapid uptake demonstrates the importance of expanding access to similar programs across Alberta’s existing building sector to meet the growing demand for hands-on retrofit support.

• In cases where participants are interested in securing additional funding or financing from other programs, our program coaches have supported aligning the energy studies to meet these requirements.

Early alignment with capital plans enables deep retrofits

• There is a strong interest from building owners in aligning potential Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs) with their existing equipment renewal and capital plans. This approach helps integrate deep retrofits more effectively while enabling owners to plan and budget proactively. This is of particular interest given the lack of incentives currently available to enable on-mass, upfront retrofits of all systems. 
  

Role of desktop assessments

• Desktop assessments delivered through Audette and Open Technologies’ virtual platforms help building owners identify priority buildings for retrofit studies. This approach is especially valuable for owners with large portfolios and limited resources, as it provides stronger direction on which buildings to start with at a lower cost and with faster turnaround.
  

Growing appreciation for non-energy benefits among building owners

• Building owners are increasingly recognizing the non-energy benefits of deep retrofits, including improved occupant comfort and health and enhanced climate resilience. For example, installing higher Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV)-rated filters when upgrading a makeup air unit with heat recovery not only improves energy efficiency but also significantly enhances indoor air quality. This benefits occupant health and productivity while strengthening the building’s resilience to extreme weather and poor air quality events. 

• Social housing providers, in particular, show strong interest in non-energy benefits, as they can directly improve residents’ quality of life while supporting long-term operational sustainability.

Priorities for year two of the program

Looking ahead, the program’s second year will build on our early momentum, strengthen our support for building owners and continue to address the barriers that surfaced in year one. Guided by what we’ve learned and the needs we heard from participants, our priorities for year two are to:

• Share our learnings broadly with the Alberta retrofit market and other retrofit accelerator programs across Canada.

• Support participants beyond deep retrofit studies by funding supplemental studies that move measures toward implementation, including feasibility studies, schematic design and other early-stage needs.

• Further explore the value and use of desktop and high-level auditing tools, including those that leverage AI, to increase speed, reduce costs and improve turnaround time for energy audits.

• Develop the program’s legacy work to support the Alberta industry in accelerating retrofit work for years to come.

• Continue to build capacity for the retrofit market in Alberta, including:

-Work with the Pembina Institute to support demand-side management knowledge and awareness among building owners.

-Work with SAIT to develop a resource to guide people through the retrofit process.

-Host knowledge-sharing sessions for educational institutions (including school boards and postsecondary institutions) to identify challenges and opportunities and to develop a market assessment report that documents insights and informs next steps.